Where does caviar come from today?

Today, the three biggest producers of farmed caviar are China (nearly 40 tons), Italy (30 tons) and France (25 tons). Next come the USA, Germany, Bulgaria, Poland and Israel, which produce between 5 and 20 tons of caviar a year.

A 3rd group of countries appear next in farmed caviar production: Uruguay, Spain, Belgium… with less than 5 tons per year.

Worth noting: Some of the world’s biggest producers have been keen to preserve local (or endemic) species through breeding. This is the case of France, which wanted to save the’Acipenser Sturio (European sturgeon), the United States with theAcipenser Transmontanus from the great American rivers (white sturgeon), from Italy with theAcipenser Naccarii (Adriatic sturgeon) or China with the Acipenser Schrenkii and theHuso Dauricusfrom the Amur River (Amur or Kaluga sturgeon). Bulgaria also breeds sturgeon, which used to live wild in the Danube.

Some countries, on the other hand, have decided to farm sturgeon without any link to a local presence of the fish. This is the case of Uruguay, a country in the southern hemisphere, whereas the wild sturgeon lives exclusively in the northern hemisphere. Breeding operations have now been set up all over the world. And this is just the beginning, given the growth of this sector…